


Poor Prince Lestat

by Gairid



Series: Through the 4th Wall, Darkly [6]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:20:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid
Summary: Burnadette de Pointe du Lac posted (from) Kirkus Reviews - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis  2016-10-19 in this week’s Capslock Friday -  inspiration struck and I wrote this - another installment of the Fourth Wall series.Credit to the lovely and talented Clouds in Venice for the ‘magnificently bizarre’ quote.Please note that in this series, Nicolas de L'Enfant did not, in fact, die.





	

“I told you to just skip it.” Brian said sympathetically. “Why are you even paying attention? It’s not like it actually has anything to do with you.”

"Oh, no, nothing to do with me - except my name's plastered on the front." Lestat, already working himself into a petulant rage, flung himself violently onto the large couch in what we are pleased to call the Media Room. The couch itself was, in turn, flung back across the floor a good foot and a half. Brian winced, trying not to look at the floor for the inevitable damage. I sat down beside him and plucked the tablet from his hand.

“Louis is interested,” he growled, glowering at Brian. “Do read it aloud if you please, Louis. I don’t think Brian had time to finish it.” 

I exchanged a look with Brian and he gave a minute shrug. Lestat turned his glare on me. “Well?”

 _“Having perhaps bled all the possibilities out of earthly children of the night, Rice takes a bite out of two big bodies of myth. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,”_ I began, only to be immediately interrupted.

“Oh, how fucking original. _’...perceive the body of our kingdom, how foul it is,’_ he quoted with sneering loftiness. 

“Same play?” Brian asked, _sotto voce_. 

“Of course it is. Why are you whispering?” Lestat snapped.

I hesitated, seeing the next sentence. He met my eyes and nodded, gesturing with a rolling motion of his hand that I should continue. He was irritated, but he does enjoy a good bout of righteous indignation.

_Pity poor Prince Lestat; he was once able to roam the world without a care, nipping and frolicking, but now he has administrative duties and, with them, fresh enemies seeking a shot at power._

“Frolicking?” Brian blurted, struggling to keep a straight face. Lestat’s lips twitched but he managed to hold on to his annoyed expression. “Come now, Brian. I’m sure you have enjoyed a good frolic now and again. You know, I am not so much irked at the idea of anyone seeking a shot at fresh power as I am at the appalling idea of having administrative duties.”

 _One constant source of irritation is the stately Rhoshamandes who has suddenly come into an all-day sucker of a captive whose ever flowing juice has “nutrients that human blood does not have.” A fine thing for a vampire’s inventory, to be sure, but a portal as well into a world whose technology, as so often happens, has outpaced its morals. Down in that watery realm, the denizens scorn the place where “a dreadful thing had happened in that mammals had gained self-awareness and intelligence and now ruled the planet.”_

“Tell me again who Rhoshamandes is?” Lestat asked.

“I’d have to read the book, my love,” I said, somewhat mesmerized by the sight of him running his hands through his hair. “I wonder if you will be swimming about in the..erm...watery realm, sampling the ever-flowing...” 

At that moment Lestat’s phone vibrated, buzzing along the side table. He picked it up and looked at it briefly before tossing it back and assuming an air of indifference. “Go on, please. And for the love of God, don’t say ‘ever-flowing juice’ again.”

_“The better to provide vampire chow, one might say. But the Atalantayans have their hungers, too, and the hungriest of them seems to have latched on to poor Lestat. Inner voice, nothing: Amel is much more than a haunting spirit, “as different from ghosts,” another super-evolved being tells us, “as angels are from humans.” Who will prevail?”_

Lestat exhaled strongly. “Poor Lestat, my ass. What the hell does all that even mean? And Atlantis? What has Atlantis to do with me?”

“Amel,” I prompted. 

“Yes, I heard you, but the passage makes no sense.”

“Sacred Core? Prince Lestat is now carrying Amel around, remember?” Brian said helpfully. “I think it means Amel is from Atlantis.”

“You sound as though that’s perfectly reasonable."

“Well, I didn’t write it,” Brian said somewhat defensively. “You read the last book...that Sacred Core thing was explained in there. You supposedly took it from...from the Queen.”

Brian is generally matter-of-fact when he spoke about others of our kind, but he had a superstitious fear of speaking Mekare’s name.

You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Louis? Me carrying Amel about in my brain.” Lestat muttered. “Oh, Anne, you magnificently bizarre woman.”

“I don’t believe I would care for that at all.” I remarked. “But here, let’s finish, shall we?”

Lestat’s phone vibrated again. “It’s that fucking Daniel. He must have a constant search running to pull any mention of this….” He raised a finger in the tremendously annoying gesture that indicates _‘Hold on while I take this’_. If Lestat’s pet peeve are these new novels, this bit of ubiquitous rudeness is mine. “Daniel. Everyone! It's Daniel! Daniel, hi!" he said with overblown cheeriness. "Yes, we were reading it just now--coincidence, hmm? Yes. Well, you do know you may stuff your clever remarks straight up your sweet little ass, don’t you? I don’t need this right now. Good night.”

“Are you sure you want to hear the rest?” I asked.

“Might as well.” Lestat said heavily. “I know I have not heard the end of it from Daniel yet.”

I nodded and continued, “ _Well, if Amel sometimes conjures Charlie Manson, Lestat sounds like Twiggy once the fussing and feuding between immortal domains is settled: “This is our universe,” he says, “We too are made of stardust as are all things on this planet; we too belong.” Yeah, well. Fans of Rice’s vampire fiction will feast on whatever they can of hers, but Ignatius Donnelly/Edgar Cayce aficionados may twitch at all the “kindred in the Blood” stuff uneasily mixed in with the old lost continent mythos. Rice’s latest excursion into otherly realms may leave some readers feeling overstuffed—but others, to be sure, will be hungry for more.”_

“Twiggy?” he sputtered. “Twiggy? Brian! Explain this reference.”

Brian goggled briefly but then gamely tried to answer. “Twiggy Ramirez, maybe? I mean, there’s a Manson reference there, right?”

“Charlie Manson, not Marilyn, though I would agree with that interpretation,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s fairly nonsensical, but less so than if the reviewer means the waifish model from the ‘60’s.”

“Waifish? None of it makes any sense,” Lestat fumed. “And Louis? Please kill me forthwith if you ever hear me say _‘we are made of stardust’_ , will you? Promise me. You must.”

“I most certainly shall, beloved." I said solemnly. He nodded, mollified and then turned to Brian.

“And you, my Brian, will continue to take care of any administrative duties. Oh, and when this wretched novel is released, I want you to read it.”

“Sure thing.” Brian said, looking less than enthusiastic.

“Take notes." Lestat said evilly. "And now, gentlemen, I would appreciate your company.” He stood and smoothed his shirt. 

“Where are we going?” Brian asked, watching with his predictable rapt fascination as Lestat nuzzled my neck briefly.

“I want a new phone. This one will be part of those administrative duties; you can field Daniel’s irritating calls. He’ll probably wind up coming around at some point with Nicki in tow, but you can at least stall them for a few days.”

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Lestat and Louis belong to Anne Rice and her publishers-no money is involved, I write these characters for love alone.


End file.
